Mansions of Madness continues to chill; New critters for IHMN games

April turned out to be a busy enough month...several good games and a little painting.

Mansions of Madness

A few months ago, the Mansions of Madness sets from Fantasy Flight games released the latest supplement, Horrific Journeys.

I can report that the Friday pm crew has now died on dirigibles, trains and steamships.

Worse still, the grand daughters came over this week and almost ( yeah, almost) stopped the cultists from opening a rift in time and space.  Mankind is doomed, but I hold great faith in the two crews of adventurers.  Sadly, any chance for a 'dream team' will have to wait until summer vacation.

What was scary was the fact that this week's episode, originally from the Call of the Wild supplement updated to use new rules from the newest supplement!  What a cool game!

IHMN

A totally different game, but fun in its own way, IHMN is enjoying a revisit with the Friday pm players.  As part of the new games, I am trying out some new critters in play.

 Behold! The... um, Beholder.

I was poking through the Reaper sections of two of our local hobby stores and found some old and new friends.  Always thought the Beholder monster a cool idea...I say, a floating malevolent eye. I need to make the teeth the final color... you will see this guy again.

 The Brass Bull

 Had to have him as well. In IHMN terms, the stats are as a Prussian military walker, It works surprisingly well. The invention should be a battering ram for the Hellfire club, not-London edition.

 The rest of the gang.  Well, the core, anyway.

 More on this group in another post. The front figure just oozes disdain. In my mind, a Hellfire chapter gone rogue (if there can be such a thing!)

The great Oz gang.

Shameless stolen ideas from another blogger, these Reaper figures will be the forces of good and innocence. And buckets of water.  See
 https://toysoldiersanddiningroombattles.blogspot.com/

A very different scenario was tried out.

 What we found out was mesmerism and meticulous planning can be stronger than arc weapons and flame throwers. Oh, and Ruby Red slippers are the bomb.

It did not play as I expected when I set it out...but that's the fun with IHMN.

More on stats and skills in an upcoming post. I promise.

Back to IHMN

Screen represents 'line of death,' an upgrade from our last game like this...

https://pancerni-fishtales.blogspot.com/2014/11/hellfire-club-versus-japanese-command.html 

It had been a little while since Greg and I had played some IHMN, and we found out somehow Roger missed out on trying the rules. So the USMC and the Prussian Society of Thule made a dash for the dirigible in our production of the scenario "Death at your heels." Roger will take a group of hardy USMC versus Greg's Society of Thule.

The local Dirigible taxi service in lieu of steam launch....lift is actually provided by old jelly jar.

A regular Friday afternoon game, played out in about 90 minutes...part of what I like about IHMN, quick, fun, scenario drive.  The playing area is about 40 nches square.

Woods, fences, houses, river would all slow movement which could lead to embarrassing situations.
Roger moves up in two groups on the left side of the table.

Greg opts to take his force, split into three groups, up the right side of the table.

For some reason, the USMC are moving quicker, although covered better, their path does not have a bridge!

First across the Lemax bridge is one of the German leaders.

Greg's soldaten turn into  zombies if taken out near enough the German carrying the  field generator.

Germans mostly across, but so far from the taxi. (Uber problem?)

USMC closes in on the escape route.

Roger now sends his leader to hold the taxi ( at least, what he told the men,)

Both sides break into firing groups.

Roger concentrated on Greg's leaders, who kept making their pluck rolls. Greg shot mostly at the groups of Marines, which led to more losses than he took.

The line of death moves closer. 

The last, desperate defence of the access to the escape craft a defiant marine holds the enemy off for two turns before perishing.  Four USMC members escape, The Society of Thule is smaller by one chapter, for those keeping score USMC 22, SoT 10.  The line of death conveniently stalled for two turns, then dramatically moved forward 14 inches in two turns near the end,

The game day actually featured the imbibing of tea by some of the participants.

  Previewed were the just arrived figures for the next new company; the Lion, Witch Dorothy Gale (she must be, she dropped a house on the WWE), Tin Man and Scarecrow from Reaper.  Oh, and the WWW, who is out for revenge.

 See the excellent work done on ideas and character stats for these and other characters.  You will have to do a little digging into older posts. I did.

 http://toysoldiersanddiningroombattles.blogspot.com/ 

2019 Imagination Campaign

Our local players are in the planning stages of an imagination campaign.  The idea is to 'borrow' from the past, a previous campaign, the backstory elements and combine them with new ideas for an ongoing campaign which would suit local tastes.

So far the long suffering Roger, Greg, and Barry have opted in for a country.  I have drafted a map of the small continent that would host some seven nations of various sizes.  Without the actual cards, the map is not very useful to tour the continent.  I will also post a map of the countries locations.  Later on maps of countries will be made up and shown, probably as parts of turn reports on the main blog page.

New continent for the 2019 imaginations

Basic layout of the cards.

There are three cards I have added to the existing Warplan 5x5 cards.  I wanted the continent to be more open and rural than the standard mix allowed.  They are called 40A, 40B, 41A. They follow here:

 

I will post the gazetteer pages of the new map cards on this page later.

2019 update

Slowly there is some painting going on, presently some Napoleonic era Austrians.  A lot of work on partially done Bolt Action contingents, Eighth Army and Free French at the moment as well.  SInce nothing unit sized is done, I have no pictures to show.  There are a couple of nascent escalation leagues at hobby stores in the area...I have missed the start of these events due to my 'OOOH shiney' method of scheduling painting time.

More importantly is a series of discussions with my Friday afternoon regulars, Roger and Greg.  A map campaign is slowly evolving, using the Warplan 5x5 cards in a new configuration,  This is reminiscent of a campaign that started in 2009 and spanned about 4 actual years before wrapping up around 2013. 

The campaign is to generate some scenarios using our collection of Napoleonic castings, Piquet's' Les Grognard' and 'Theater of War' rules as well as providing a tie in for some 'IHMN' and 'Chosen Men ' games. Some of the campaign maneuvering, battling and general nonsense will be posted here.

The 'IHMN' and 'Chosen Men' games will allow various plots to hatch against neighboring monarchs without an all out war occurring.  It will also get the benefit of scenarios being based on campaign situations for color. 

Yes, the 'IHMN' rules are set 80 or so years removed from the Napoleonic era, but are great fun as well as representing balanced small forces in competition.

The 'Chosen Men' games will draw right from map based frictions too small to go he campaign battle report.

Mansions of Madness (Fantasy Flight Games) has a new-ish expansion 'Horrific Journeys' with three cracking good scenarios, several new investigators and monsters added to the rolls.  I mention it because I only found out about it (the expansion) by walking into a friendly neighborhood gaming store and seeing it on the shelf...despite being registered for the game and uh, like four expansions!


Unrelated but still useful:
Oh, if you enjoy the Snappy Nappy rules and the annual campaign in a day happening up our way near Hartford, CT, this link should provide information on the actual day and campaign outline.

This is to direct you to Peter Andersen's "Blunders on the Danube" blog. Peter (Gonsalvo) is participating and the actual organiser's info is in the article.

http://blundersonthedanube.blogspot.com/2019/02/snappy-nappy-1814-campaign-in-day.html

 More tomorrow, especially if we get the high end of the snow forecasted for tomorrow.....I am raelly reday for spring to arrive. 

Credit where it is due

My buddy and Bavarian Napoleonic mogul Roger went in on an order to the Perry bros. in October. Our goal was to get the free shipping, and we certainly made it!

 I put the order in a Sunday night.  The next Monday (eighth day) my wife went to check the mail and said " There is a pretty heavy box out here."  This is what she brought in:

Over one hundred packs of figures and three (WW2) vehicles.  Everything as ordered, no breakage.   Nice company to do business with for figures!

I will be painting my portion of the order over the next several months. Napoleonic Swedes, WW2 Vichy French. Roger?  Lots of Bavarians!

I have some catching up to do...part 5 Carlist War

This is the final catching up post, although I do have some WW2 and odds and ends to show on later posts.

The Navarrese units are actually part of a long ago campaign and another of 'My Daughter  is awesome' posts.

In all their Carlist glory

After college, the first pbm (1970's- so really by mail.) campaign included a country called Navarre.  The player named his country and used the Carlist uniforms as a basis of his 'imagined' nation.  Since all the rest of the players were pretty much wed to Napoleonic style uniforms, this made Dave (the player of Navarre) the standout sartorially.

Flash forward 40 years or so.  My hankering after a Carlist force stoked by the Perry Bros. range and abetted by a Christmas present from my daughter. I have some mounted  command to paint and await a possible reinforcement, if my daughter once again delves into the website for my Christmas gift. (Hope springs eternal....and she did ask what I wanted...)

The uniforms are basic Navarre troops from the book called The First on the Carlist War by Conrad Cairns on the Perry website. Sadly, the book is not listed right now on their website.  There is a scenario/rulebook on the Carlist war listed...All honor is Lost  but I do not know what uniform information it might have inside.  Another good source for information is the yahoo group on the Carlist War.

 I have two units formed and one on skirmish bases.   This should give me a lot of flexibility in small forces.
Anyway, in the tradition of how I play, these fellows will be featured as a contingent in the next 'imaginated' campaign slowly bubbling on my back burners.

I have some catching up to do...Part 4 Austrian fast artillery battery

The very first post on the blog was about painting an Austrian foot battery.

Since I want to do at the equivalent of an Austrian light division roughly 1813-1815 a fast battery is 'required.' Took a few years, oh well.

The special box complete with seats for the crew are the sign of the battery type

I am thinking, unloaded battery would put the rammer out front?

 

 

 

Since I went into the reasons behind the decision to make an oob needing this battery in the post on the jagers, this post is a little shorter.